Unless they be absolutely black and squalid, all old country towns have a charm of their own. They may possess historical or personal associations of the supremest interest, like Lichfield; they may hold a central place in some dire story of battle and siege, like Colchester; their renown may be architectural, as at Salisbury; or that of a vice-metropolis, as at York. Others there are, and they are in the majority, which have for all attraction quaint streets of gabled houses, and rural environs gay with birds and flowers, and ancient timbered parks watered by quivering streams. The town of Abingdon unites most of these attributes, save that it has seen little of war, and that it is unassociated with any commanding personality. It is handsomer and more shapely than most of the riverside towns in the Thames Valley; and although it is little more than a big village in the centre of a moderately prosperous agricultural district, it is entitled to take upon itself some of the airs and graces due to the possession of distinctions for which many larger places sigh in vain, since it has been a municipal and parliamentary borough since the days of Mary Tudor. A town seated upon a river is nearly always seen to best advantage from the water, and the view of Abingdon immediately after the bridge is shot is very pretty and reposeful. The bridge itself, although not remarkably graceful, is yet exceedingly picturesque. Of great antiquity, it is greyish-brown of hue, and profusely mossed from water-line to coping. Several of the arches are dry, and serve only to carry on the road above, with its irregular rows of oddly-gabled cottages. To the left all is level meadow, backed by belts of woodland; to the right lies the town, the tall, handsome spire of St. Helen's Church, with its flying buttresses, rising high above the red-tiled roofs of the waterside buildings. Abingdon is a land of chestnut-trees. Along the waterside, on the eyots, in the quiet gardens of the old red-brick houses, there are chestnuts. To the stranger chestnuts and grey-stone villas are, indeed, the two most notable characteristics of this pretty little town. In the late spring and early summer the place seems to be surrounded with the peculiarly lovely blossom of a tree which, whatever the season may be, is always pleasing to look upon. The chestnut in England has in modern times been treated with less courtesy than it deserves. It is a better tree in many ways than the elm, which is usually placed only a step or two below the oak. It may not be so graceful, but it is beautiful notwithstanding, and far less treacherous. In such esteem, indeed, was it held by our ancestors that many of their beautiful half-timbered houses, which a careless posterity supposes to have been invariably built of oak, were largely constructed of chestnut, while many an old house is full of admirably carved and polished chestnut furniture. [Illustration: ABINGDON, FROM THE RIVER.]